The 2020 Plan

"The goal of this strategic plan is simple: We want to be the preeminent metropolitan research university that our region deserves."

Since its inauguration in 1798, the University of Louisville has evolved into one of America’s finest academic institutions, a recognized force for excellence in education and innovation in research and scholarly activity. Much of this has taken place in the last decade, spurred by the Kentucky General Assembly’s approval in 1997 of HB1, the Higher Education Reform Act.

That act included a mandate that UofL become a “preeminent metropolitan research university by the year 2020.

By 2006 the university had met 10 of the Challenge’s 11 goals, and we were well on our way to achieving the final one. Subsequently, UofL today is a much different place than it was in 1997. Our quality of students and faculty is up, research productivity has risen dramatically and our business start-ups and other measures of economic development have increased sharply.

Even the look of our campuses has changed drastically, improving the environment for students and leading to the redevelopment of the entire neighborhood.

By any measure, the 2020 Plan Challenge was a success.

The 2020 Plan takes us step-by-step through the process of how we will come to realize all those important goals laid out for us by the forward-thinking legislators of 1997. At the same time, it shows how we will achieve the promise we made the people of our community and state: to be a great citizen university that helps improve the quality of life for Kentuckians now and into the future.